


Quest

by buttered_onions



Series: Voltron: AU Fills [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Magic, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, tumblr requests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8922868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttered_onions/pseuds/buttered_onions
Summary: Magic is illegal since Altea fell. Fortunately, 'legality' isn't something Pidge is worried about.





	

**Author's Note:**

> More AU!fills~ I'm filling prompts on [tumblr](http://butteredonions.tumblr.com) with utter, total abandon. Please write 'carried away' on my tombstone. I post these on tumblr first, so if you want them the minute they're available, that's the place to be! 
> 
> This is the first in a trio of fantasy fills, unrelated and un'betaed. All mistakes are gleefully mine. This prompt is from VelkynKarma, who asked for my take on classic!fantasy AU. So happy to oblige~
> 
> Enjoy!

**00\. Magic isn’t safe to use in public anymore.**

How long it’s been really depends on where you start counting.

Do you start counting when the Galra army finally pushed their way across the Border with terrifying speed, purple spells and black magic dripping from fingers and weapons? (Do you count days, or do you count the villages lost, the homes burned, the people who fled or the people who were taken? The numbers are staggering in any variation.)

Do you start counting when the Magic Institute of Altea fell? When the necromancers won, when the institution was taken and its remaining students lost or scattered to the wind? (Do you count the students who were there, do you count the loss of the paralleling schools of swordsmanship, archery, techniques and skills now lost by a conquering nation? Do you count those whose parents had already withdrawn them from the school after the Expedition failed? Do you count those who didn’t have that choice, do you count those who stood and fought, do you count bodies or do you count rumors?)

Do you start counting even further back than that, when the scouting Expedition was lost entirely? When Altea, the school fully blessed and backed by the Royalty, sent a group of its most promising mages to the Border in the first place? “Dead” is a word whispered in households, whispered when you pass by in the halls; is that when you started counting? (Do you count the ways the entire thing could have gone wrong? Do they keep you up at night, with _sabotage_ or _outnumbered_ or _ambush_ or _betrayal?_ Or do you count the lies told to you since the terrible news first broke?)

Everyone who went on the Expedition is dead, they say. It’s the error of the mages. They’re dead because magic can’t be trusted. That’s when this all started. It’s their fault.

Pidge doesn’t buy it for an instant.

 

**01\. Pidge, the Rogue**

Pidge gets her brother back the same way she’s gotten everything else since the Expedition failed: by stealing.

Pidge excels at getting into places where she shouldn’t. She’s small, stealthy, quick on her feet and has never met a lock she can’t unravel. It’s a skill honed since magic became illegal; it’s the visible skill that earns her bread and butter. It’s part of the skill set that finds her way through cities and libraries and to clues people would rather she left alone.

It’s part of it, because the other thing Pidge excels at is _finding things_.

Pidge lets herself into the witch’s castle with little fanfare and zero notice. She slips cat-like around corners, spends a few careful minutes on the ceiling above the heads of a guard patrol, and zigzags her way down to the cells just in case. It’s habit.

They’re empty. As usual.

She doesn’t swear; no sense in risking being overheard. Rather, Pidge lingers in the shadows and closes her eyes just briefly.

_What in here does the witch not want to be found?_

A sparkle; a green glint at the edge of her senses. Pidge opens her eyes - her lenses are tucked away in her pocket, so they won’t reflect any light - and grins.

_Gotcha._

The _sense_ , inasmuch as she calls it, leads her up stairs, down hallways, up and up again. A locked door at the end of her search glows gently green when she passes. Pidge grins a hooked cat’s smile and sets to work with her tools.

The room beyond is empty and sparse. Her _sense_ calls her to a chest, hidden back among many others, unobtrusive behind a desk. Pidge drops to a crouch and coaxes the chest open with a whisper.

It’s full of pages, rolled pieces of parchment slipping between her fingers. One of them glows dimly like the door; Pidge pulls it out and undoes the seal with a murmur. The words on the page are in a language she can’t read, blurring before her eyes. Only one word stands out, crystal clear.

_Voltron?_

“What are you doing in here?”

Pidge jumps, startled, cursing herself. A figure’s standing in the open door. The only door. It’s a soldier, or at least she thinks so. He’s staring.

“I know you,” he breathes.

“I really don’t think so,” Pidge says, shifting her weight. The parchment curls back in her fingers, glow fading.

The soldier must be a high-ranking guard of some sort. His livery is the same purple-and-black as the guards she’s evaded, though not identical; it’s simpler in the sleeves, tighter around the throat. The biggest difference is the thick iron bracelet clasped around his right wrist. It’s large and bulky, leaking magic in a way that Pidge nearly gags to look at. Letters and dark sigils twist from the bracelet up past his elbow, shifting tendrils of shining darkness on top of his sleeve.

The guard shakes his head. He’s staring at the parchment, loose in Pidge’s grip. “How did you find that?”

It’s the gentle green sparks dancing along the bracelet, loose between the twisting darkness, that whispers to Pidge: _you can trust him._

“I’m looking for my brother,” Pidge says, hesitantly.

“He’s not here,” the soldier says. “I’d know. You need to leave before she catches you.”

Wild hope surges in her chest. “Do you know where he is?”

“She has a second stronghold,” the soldier says. His left hand isn’t encumbered like his right. The bracelet pulses, sickening to look at but for Pidge’s green. “To the east. It’s far. Your twin might be there. Can you take that with you?”

Pidge blinks, fingers tightening around the parchment.

“Please,” the soldier repeats, near desperate. “I can’t - I can’t let her find it. I don’t know how you did, but since you’re here - that message needs to get to Altea. Can you do that?”

“Altea’s gone,” Pidge manages.

“It’s not,” the soldier says grimly, “Please. I - ”

Footsteps running; a door slams shut. Someone yells, voices raised. They’re out of time.

“Go,” the soldier hisses, and actually clears out of the doorway. “I’ll distract them. Hurry!”

Pidge doesn’t miss her chance, darting through into the open hall - but something in the guard’s eyes makes her pause.

“What are you waiting for?!” he demands. “Go!”

“I don’t even know your name!” Pidge blurts.

“That makes two of us,” the not-soldier says. His face is pale beneath the scar stretching across the bridge of his nose, the shock of white hair on his forehead. “Now go!”

Pidge takes the parchment and runs.

 

**02\. Lance, the ranger who definitely wasn’t a student at Altea the night it was attacked, nope, he has no magic, what are you talking about**

“What were you thinking?!” Lance shouts, when Pidge finally makes it back to camp.

“I was _thinking_ that was the best chance we have to find my brother,” Pidge snaps back. She’s out of breath from running, but the soldier was true to his word: she wasn’t followed. “You guys would’ve been seen. The best thing was for me to go and go alone. I did and I’m _fine_.”

“We were worried,” Hunk says, from the other side of the fire. A small pot’s hanging over the flames, an appealing aroma rising from it. “Lance was this close to going in after you.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t,” Pidge says. The night’s cold; she scoots closer to the heat gratefully, holding out her gloved hands. The gloves are ripped. That’s new. “I had it under control.”

Lance slings his bow off his shoulder, propping it against a tree. He’s still scowling. “Sure you did. That’s why you’re three hours late, of _course_ you had it ‘under control’!”

“I had help,” Pidge protests hotly.

“Yeah?” Lance demands, tossing his quiver down next to his bow. “From who?”

_I don’t know his name._

Pidge hesitates. Lance huffs, flopping down next to Hunk. “That’s what I thought.”

“It’s not like that,” Pidge tries, but Hunk holds up his hand.

“Look, Pidge,” he says, “I get that you’re independent. I get that this is new for you, and that finding your brother’s the most important thing ever. It is! But we’re a team, right? When you go off like that we worry. That’s it. We want to help, but we can’t if you don’t let us. I’m not saying you have to tell us everything- ”

“Never mind that I tell _you_ everything,” Lance interrupts over him.

“Like where dinner came from, huh?” Pidge shoots back, eyeing the stew Hunk’s already dishing up for her.

Lance scowls. “That’s different.”

“-but keeping secrets that we can help with isn’t helping you,” Hunk finishes, ignoring Lance completely. “That’s it. That’s all. We’re your _friends_ , Pidge. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Pidge thinks of the parchment, rolled up inside her jacket.

 

**03\. Working together, they do manage to rescue Matt.**

“How did you find me?” Matt gapes, as Pidge cuts him free.

“Long story,” Pidge says. East Camp is quiet but not for long; they don’t have much time. For the first and last time she can remember in living memory, checking the cells - or in this case, the prisoner tents - actually _worked_. Matt’s here. She found him. He’s _here_.

“We can’t leave,” Matt insists, as they hustle to the edge of camp. He’s limping from an injury to his knee, clearly old but healed wrong. Pidge whistles into the dark, a careful call; an owl hoots back plainly. Lance. _All clear_.

“We have to,” Pidge says.

“No,” Matt snaps back. With one arm slung around Pidge’s shoulder for balance his hands aren’t free to cast spells, even if he looked like he had the energy for it. He’s leaning heavily on Pidge, but either Matt’s lost weight in the last however-many months or Pidge has gotten stronger. Maybe both. “There’s someone I need to find!”

“You’re the only one here,” Pidge promises, dragging him along. “I checked!”

Matt resists, still fighting her. “Then we have to figure out where he is. The witch, she’s too interested, I _promised_ him - ”

The owl hoots again, louder and more urgent. Pidge snaps her head up.

“Hey, you!” shouts a voice. They’ve been seen.

“Oh shit,” says Pidge.

 

**04\. They’re saved from this particular situation by none other than Lance’s arch-enemy.**

“Keith,” Lance groans, “Are you kidding me?! What are you doing here?”

“I haven’t seen you in _forever!”_ Hunk exclaims, wrapping Keith up in a bone-crushing hug.

“I know,” Keith says flatly. “Sorry.”

Keith doesn’t say _I missed you, too_ , but he does awkwardly return the hug, patting Hunk on the back.

“Dude, don’t even apologize,” Hunk says, pulling back. “Where did you get those?”

Lance squints at the twin swords strapped across Keith’s back. “Did you steal them?”

“I didn’t steal them, Lance,” Keith replies in the long-suffering tone of one falling easily back into a pattern.

“Okay, hang on,” Pidge interrupts, helping Matt settle down by the fire. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on? How do you all know each other?”

Keith shrugs. “Went to school together.”

“Before _somebody_ dropped out,” Lance is quick to add.

“I don’t see you carrying a graduation sigil either,” Keith replies.

Lance glares. “You try graduating from a school that doesn’t exist anymore!”

“Wait,” Pidge says, “Wait, _hang on._ So you’re -”

Keith holds out his open palm. A tiny ball of fire poofs into existence, floating gently above his skin. Its red and orange flames burn brightly in the night, small and much warmer than Pidge expects.

“Fire, ooooh,” Lance says sarcastically. “Big whoop.”

The fire disappears as Keith curls his fingers in. “Better than talking to animals.”

Lance pokes a finger into Keith’s chest. “Excuse you, those animals saved your life last night!”

“So you missed the part where the _explosions_ were enough of a distraction?” Keith retorts.

“Enough,” Hunk cuts in. “Knock it off, you two. You haven’t seen each other in a full year and the first thing you’re going to do is fight?”

“Yes,” Keith and Lance both snap, in unison.

Hunk groans. “Unbelievable. Ignore them, Matt, they’re children. Can I take a look at your knee?”

 

**05\. The legal thing to do these days is deny you have magic, or go on the run. That’s part of the reason they have Hunk.**

“There’s a lot of scar tissue,” Hunk says, apologetically. Yellow light glows under his hands where they hover over Matt’s knee. “I can fix it, but it’ll hurt.”

“Do it,” Matt says tightly. “I’ve had worse.”

Pidge squeezes his hand, settled on the rough rock next to him. Camp’s small and seems crowded with the addition of two more people, but she wouldn’t give up her brother for anything. She’ll always make room.

“Right, here’s the deal,” Lance announces, returning back to their fire with two rabbits slung over his shoulder. Blue light still clings to their fur, though the glow’s gently fading. “Pidge, you still have that letter for Altea, right?”

“Altea?” Matt gasps. “There’s nothing left. The necromancers were too thorough.”

“How do you know that?” Pidge breathes. 

Matt grimaces. “Long story.”

“And not entirely true,” Keith says. “It’s bad, but it’s not all gone.”

“You’ve been?” Lance blurts.

Keith nods, unfazed by their surprise. “I’ve been back in since the attack, yes, but I wouldn’t go again. The necromancy’s still clinging to the Castle. Going in without back-up could be very dangerous.”

“What were you doing going back there in the first place?” Lance asks, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s a suicide mission!”

Keith crosses his arms over his chest. “Obviously not. And not that it’s any of your business, but I was looking for…something.”

“Is that how you knew where to find me?” Matt asks. He flinches as Hunk traces carefully over his knee, fingers gently but steadily pushing gold.

“Not quite,” Pidge says, digging in her pack.

Keith fairly snatches the parchment out of her hand.

“Can you read it?” Lance wonders, peering over Keith’s shoulder.

“No,” Keith whispers, but it isn’t so much an answer as an exhale of disbelief. He’s pale in the firelight. “This handwriting - who gave this to you?”

“I don’t know?” Pidge offers. “It came from the witch’s castle. I didn’t get his name.”

“What were you doing at Haggar’s castle?” Matt demands, but hisses as Hunk probes further into his knee. “Katie!”

Pidge frowns defensively. “I’m stronger than I used to be. She never knew I was there. The soldier who gave this to me distracted her so I could get away.”

“Are you sure he was a soldier?” Keith demands. “What did he look like?”

“Calm down,” Lance urges. Keith’s radiating heat in his rising distress; he shoves the letter at Lance so quickly that Lance nearly drops it. “Watch it! What’s the big deal?”

“We’re not going to Altea,” Keith says. Lance studies the letter but can’t make head or tails of it. He passes it to back to Pidge just as Hunk presses down again on Matt’s knee. Matt jerks, crying out.

“Sorry!” Hunk says, “Sorry, I’m almost done. Stay still.”

“Why not?” Lance demands, of Keith. “The letter - ”

“We can get to Altea all we want later, but we’re going to Haggar’s castle first,” Keith insists. Fire dances enraged at his fingertips before he snuffs it out irritably, swallowing in tightly-drawn control. “I’d recognize that chickenscratch handwriting anywhere. You weren’t saved by some _soldier_ , Pidge. That message is from Shiro.”

 

**+1. _Altea first_ or _Shiro first_ is a choice they cannot agree on. They split up.**

**+1a. Saving Shiro ends in near total disaster.**

“Keith,” Shiro gasps, recognition finally _finally_ alight in his eyes, “What are you doing here?!”

“Getting you out,” Keith snaps, “Show me your arm.”

“You can’t,” Shiro says, as close to despondency as Keith’s ever heard him. Keith reaches for Shiro’s wrist anyway. The bracelet sparks, a shock of dark electricity, and he’s forced to recoil. He can’t touch it, symbols wrapped up Shiro’s arm like a second skin. “It’s - she’s attached it to me, somehow. I’ve tried.”

“Your magic - ”

“She has it,” Shiro grits out. “I didn’t remember until just now, either. Keith -”

“Keith!” Matt yells, from the hall, “We’re out of time, here!”

“I’m not leaving without Shiro!” Keith shouts back.

“You have to,” Shiro begs. His terror physically hurts to see. Keith can’t. “You have to get out there and find Voltron. It’s the only thing that can stop her. Keith! Promise me. If I don’t make it -”

 

**+1b. Altea is exactly as haunted as predicted, but comes with an enormous war-changing bonus.**

Allura’s a dragon.

“But dragons are supposed to be extinct!” Hunk gawks. Lance is gaping, blue energy still dripping from his fingertips.

“Do I look extinct to you?” Allura huffs, as they crane their necks up at her. Her scales are beautiful, white tipped with regal rose. “We have no time to waste. I know the witch you speak of; the necromancy you defeated to awaken me is her handiwork. If Haggar plans a summoning to bring Zarkon back into the world, we must stop her.”

“Okay, hang on,” Hunk blurts frantically. “Zarkon? As in _Demon Lord Zarkon?”_

“Precisely,” Allura says, teeth tucked in a thin line.

“We know what to do,” Lance says, “Sort of. The only thing that can stop her is _Voltron_. Do you know what that is?”

“Not ‘what’,” Allura says, scoffing, “ ‘Who’.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked what you read or want to see more please consider leaving me a comment. Comments totally make my day over here. Feel free to come visit on [tumblr](http://butteredonions.tumblr.com), too; I don't bite. Come yell.
> 
> (originally posted [here](http://butteredonions.tumblr.com/post/154509141578/oh-man-au-meme-for-voltron-i-wanna-know-your))


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